Using Windows VST Plugins on Linux

Thanks to the combined work of Torben Hohn, Kjetil Mattheusen, Paul
Davis and a few other developers, it is possible to use Windows
VST
plugins (that is, plugins in VST format built and distributed
for the Windows platforms) on Ardour running on Linux.

However, doing so has three substantial downsides:

It requires a special build of Ardour that is fundamentally
very different from normal builds

As usual with plugins, a crashing plugin will take Ardour down
with it—and crashes in Windows VST plugins are more likely when
used in this way

The dependence on Wine makes it almost impossible for the Ardour
project to support this feature. Wine's functionality generally
improves over time, but any given release of Wine may behave worse
with some or all Windows VST plugins. It may even just crash Ardour
completely.

Step back and think about what "using Windows VSTs" really means:
taking bits of software written with only one idea in mind—running
on the Windows platform—and then trying to use them on an entirely
different platform. It is a bit of a miracle (thanks largely to the
incredible work done by the Wine project) that it works at all. But is
this the basis of a stable, reliable DAW for a non-Windows platform?
Getting Ardour on Linux to pretend that its really a Windows
application running on Windows?

It is understandable that there are many outstanding plugins available as
Windows VSTs and, that in many cases, no equivalent is available for Linux.
If a workflow is so dependent on those plugins, Ardour should be used on
Windows (or potentially used with an actual Windows VST host running inside
of Wine). If the effort can be made, a better environment can be obtained by
using a normal build of Ardour and exploring the world of plugins built to
run on Linux natively. This covers LADSPA, LV2 and Linux VST formats, and
even some outstanding proprietary plugins such as those from
Loomer.

A Plea To Plugin Manufacturers

Please consider porting your plugins so that users can enjoy them on
Linux too. Several other commercial plugin developers have already
done this. You can choose between using "Linux VST" (which is what
Loomer and others have done)—you will find toolkits like JUCE that
help to make this fairly easy—or using LV2 format which is
ultimately more flexible but probably more work. We have
users—thousands of users—on Linux who would like to use your
plugins.